ISSUE #03
__Winter 2016
L E V I ’ S : AW 1 5 CAREERS OF TOMORROW LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE GIRLS S I LV E R T O W N : 2 0 1 6 : A N E W K I N D O F E X P E R I E N C E
HatchIssue03 £5.99
Beyond Now
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H AT BRI
FOC
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TCH NGS
CUS
P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G - 5 -
If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy. BLAISE PASCAL
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THE
TEAM
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Ian Irving ian@breedcommunications.com @MrIanIrving
Editor
Chris Henry chris@breedcommunications.com @chrishenry23
Art Direction & Design
Paul Boulding & Daisy Boulding
Words
Ian Irving, Chris Henry, Brian Boakes, Tom Scott
Contributions from:
Neil Waller (SHORE Projects) Kyra Oates (Benefit Cosmetics) Mel Noakes (Experiential Marketing Expert and founder of Naked Coaching) Marian Okogwu (BlackPepper PR) Claude Johnson (Black Fives Foundation) Ben Reed (Silvertown) Julia Mitelman (OneLeapLtd) Doone Roisin (finder.com.au)
Photography & Video: Daisy Boulding, Neil Mason neilmasonphotography.com SMP Group
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__ C O N T E N T S
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14-15 18-19 20-21 24-27 30-31 34-35 38-39 42-43 46-47 48-49 52-53 56-57 60-61 62-67 68-69 72-73 74 -7 5 78-79 80-81 90-93 96-97
Editor’s Notes HATCH Magazine: A year in the life Welcome to the world of multi-channel Shore Projects: Lean retail experience How lean retail can work for new brands Giving live events a social narrative Brands stripping back with lean retail Study start-ups, Not trend reports Long live total retail Customer Insight: Understanding how customers shop in store 2016: A new kind of experience Levi’s AW 15/16 Keeping it relevant: Brand authority in retail Strategic partnerships to leverage mission content Careers of tomorrow Power to the social people Sending the elevator back down with Mel Noakes Let’s hear it for the girls My mentors and me with Marian Okogwu Brands of the future The future is here
Campaigns in Focus: 24-27 56-57
Shore Projects: Lean retail experience Levi’s AW 15/16
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H ERE WE ARE ON #3 AN D TH ERE HAS BEEN A R EMARKABLE AMOUNT OF FEEDBACK TO TH E FI RST ISSUE, which we now distribute in UK Business and 1st Class Airport lounges as well as the UK Soho Houses. And this issue will also be distributed to over 4,000 UK businesses so its little wonder that the phones and e-mail have been red hot with requests to contribute, purchase Ad space and of course ‘get a copy’. Thrilled doesn’t even touch the sides. Accolades and mentions that include “simply the most beautifully designed and engaging business magazine I have ever read” from the CEO of one of the world’s leading airlines (thank you sir!)
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Anyway, what’s the score with issue 3, how can we keep the momentum and appreciation flowing, well we embraced those that had a desire to be involved and they’re an eclectic bunch to say the least, we have contributors from across the globe who bring their own perspective on this issue’s subject of the Beyond Now. We will be bringing you insights and revelations aplenty about the highs and lows of retail consumption, the positive impacts of female empowerment and the positive impact that taking a “PHYGITAL” approach can bring to your marketing and sales strategy. The only thing left to say is a HUGE thank you to my incredibly talented colleagues for their hard work on this issue, thank you to all of our contributors and partners and a thank you in advance to our readers for their continued support.
ENJOY AND DON’T FORGET TO GET PHYGITAL! Ian Irving EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G - 16 -
“IF RETAILERS CAN HARNESS MULTI-CHANNEL ACTIVITY THEY WILL INCREASE THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR CUSTOMERS AND WILL IMPROVE CONVERSION RATES AND PROFITABILITY” EXPERIAN UK
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H AT C H M AG A Z I N E :
A YEAR I N TH E LI FE Well what a year it’s been for HATCH Magazine, from humble beginnings as a digital platform, the premier release of HATCH online surpassed all expectations. Downloaded over 3,000 times by the reading public, this newly launched title began making waves on social with content junkies and design and image obsessives waxing lyrical about the themes and style within the magazine, and how it was in one simple word…f*****g cool. From that first set of amazing reactions, we knew another issue had to happen. Whilst we began work on that, HATCH Live was also in the ether. A live marketing event that embraced the magazine’s ideologies and philosophies about the world we exist in today as consumers, and as creatures that are enraptured by social and tech. A night of challenging discussion that posed questions about the retail futures of tomorrow, attendees went away buzzing and inspired by the evening’s conversations and were asking the question, when will the next HATCH Live take place? The amount of positive feedback HATCH Live stirred, we knew we had to keep the iron hot and made the decision to print HATCH. A bold decision some might say what with the decline of reputable printed titles in the now booming digital age. However, if retail has taught us anything, people are still enamored by the prospect of something physical and tangible that they can hold, touch and feel. And this, as we saw with the last issue of HATCH Magazine, endorsed that logic with many readers complimenting the last issue as a beautiful product that featured rich and glorious content. What has happened throughout the last year has been an incredible journey that has sparked many conversations. Many of these have allowed us to be connected with some amazing and inspiring people and has ultimately led us now to this current issue – The Beyond Now.
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Please enjoy as we take our first step in 2016, a year that promises to be an exciting one for all parties involved in the creation of HATCH Magazine; Breed and its creative partners SMP Group and CreateLondon. Keep posted for more updates on the next HATCH Live as well as all news about the magazine. The best way to keep afloat of what’s happening is to give our social platforms a follow: @hatch_mag (Twitter) and @hatchmag (Instagram). Read on, enjoy and have a great 2016.
C h r i s H e n r y EDITOR
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P H OT O B Y. S T E V E N L E W I S
Retail aint what it used to be…
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF MULTI-CHANNEL WORDS: IAN IRVING ST R AT E G Y D I R E C TO R , B R E E D
Having worked with and been approached by a number of White goods manufacturers expressing their challenges between the high street and the online over the past 18 months, we decided to investigate the current picture of consumer buying behaviour and our findings were very insightful and beneficial to seeking the right solutions for our clients.
however cite flexibility of delivery options and easier returns as the most important influencers.
E-Commerce continues to grow, with 60% of the population accessing the Internet on a daily or near daily basis and another 20% who access less frequently, there can be no doubt that the digital world has changed our attitudes to shopping.
Half of respondents had received products that they didn’t feel match their online description, whilst perhaps surprisingly security concerns were mentioned by only 38% - although this is still of greater importance for older age groups.
To establish how retailers should best increase consumer consideration and purchase, it’s important to understand how online adults operate across channels when making purchasing decisions. Here we discuss the findings of our research and delve into consumers’ behaviours and motivations, and what it means for UK retailers.
Clothing retailers face the unique challenge of overcoming the large frustration of having to guess sizing of unfamiliar brands prior to securing an online purchase, potentially why delivery and returns charges were mentioned by many as a key deterrent for online purchasing.
Online shopping is growing but there is still a large variation across product categories.
Researching products online drives store visits Retailers within categories with lower online purchasing penetration need to recognise the wider impact of consumers’ online engagement. In every category, except food, between 80-90% of consumers say that the Internet has some influence on their purchasing decisions.
The highest-ranking reasons for online purchasing were convenience, better value for money and access to a greater product range than the High Street. The Books, Music and Games category shows the highest online purchase penetration, with 50% of responders buying more online than offline. Food and Grocery and White goods show the largest in store only purchase groups. Within all categories there are a proportion of consumers who predominately buy online, these are more likely to be middle-income career or family based groups.
Even those that have shopped online cited areas of annoyance with the process with 60% of purchasers frustrated by deliveries arriving whilst they weren’t in – this is a particular issue for under 35’s.
Commodity merchandise such as Electronics and White goods are predominantly researched online by the majority of responders, with many switching back to stores to make the final purchase. The practicality of being able to see and try products prior to purchase is seen as the major benefit of store visits with the additional benefit for some being the availability of expert opinions through staff in-store.
We found 14% hadn’t purchased at all online or purchased very rarely. This online non-adopter group is highly skewed towards 56+ and those on lower incomes. A proportion of this group are open to shopping online - 20 -
Quite telling though is the fact that only 12% of consumers thought a bricks and mortar visit would provide better value for money – it would seem people feel they are paying a premium for the privilege of an in- store experience. The highest-ranking reasons for online purchasing were convenience, better value for money and access to a greater product range than the high street Regardless of where the final purchase is secured, across channels it’s apparent that today’s online consumer is much more informed of the products available, using readily available resources to explore and refine their search to pinpoint what they want to buy. This behaviour cuts right across responders’ demographics – so is no longer behaviour restricted to younger age groups. On the hunt for a bargain High street sales drive high footfall as people hunt for the best bargains. Online shopping has taken this hunting phenomenon and made it reality all year round. Looking for cheap deals was considered the most important advantage of shopping online, the importance of this is skewed towards middle age and income groups who are more likely to have young families, however those actually using such tactics are less marked in terms of demographic. Across categories, 12% of our responders say their purchasing decisions are actively influenced by voucher code sites and collaborative buying sites such as Groupon. Price comparison sites are actively used to finalise purchasing decisions in Electricals and White goods in over 40% of cases - an iPod is an iPod wherever you buy it from. Finally, targeted email offers from retailers have the biggest influence on driving purchase in the Clothing and Books categories with over a quarter of respondents saying they often drove them to purchase.
Retail is going mobile One of the biggest shifts in Internet usage recently has been the introduction of the smartphone with 13% of who respondents have purchased on their phone, predominately within Books and Music. Reasons for not having purchased ranged from the major lack of phone functionality to more traditional online concerns, however many respondents cited screen size as a deterrent or mobile site functionality which makes filling in the forms difficult. The more interesting development was for bricks and mortar retail and about how increased mobile browsing will bring digital behaviours right into the high street. Already 10% of our survey has used their mobile whilst in store to check the best prices for the item they want to purchase. The emergence of location based vouchering such as Facebook Places is evident with 4% of the sample responding to such activity. Early adopters of these types of activities tend to be younger; however this type of behaviour is purely an extension of what consumers across the board are now doing with more traditional online browsing. Consumers are getting social with their shopping habits. The purchasing decision used to be a relatively private affair potentially informed by manufacturer or retailer driven information and canvassing close friends or relatives’ opinion. Consumers now actively seek recommendations/ reviews about brands or particular products pre-purchase. This is particularly relevant for commodity type purchase groups where 20% of purchases are influenced by reviews. People are also influenced by what friends within their social networks are saying about particular products they have purchased, this varies between 5-10% in category
purchasers with Books, Music and Games and Clothing most influenced. Taking this one step further, 5% have actively sought feedback on a potential product purchase from Twitter or Facebook followers on their mobile – again demonstrating how online behaviours will begin to infiltrate the high street. So here are a few Key take-outs for retailers Knowledge is key • Be aware of the rise of informed consumers. Increased research capability allows customers to pinpoint product and expected price - don’t underestimate how much they know. • Be aware of the Switchers Consumers can switch between online and offline channels to make financial purchasing decisions so create a consistent multi-channel experience rather then operating in offline and online silos. Incentivise Digital channels mean consumers will work hard to find the best deal. Understand where to promote offers to relevant audiences.
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Rise of social retailing Amazon’s link with Facebook demonstrates how this type of activity is on the rise. Leverage the strength of targeted campaigns linked with friend’s networks to drive the power of social media.
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Location, location, location Make it easier for consumers to trade on mobile applications, increasing purchasing likelihood as consumers can ‘shop on the move’. Use mobile to engage with consumers offering promotions that can be used online and in- store.
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“ W H AT Y O U D O TO D AY W I L L DETERMINE YOUR FUTURE.”
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P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G - 23 -
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L E A N R E TA I L
EXPERIENCE
Shore Projects A watch brand inspired by the spirit of the British seaside. With retail today competitive as ever, brands are moving more towards leaner retail solutions for their consumer experiences. Shore Projects were in need of a retail experience that was memorable, innovative and provided them with a lean retail solution. Breed created this from concept and design right through to live production and installation.
Breed created an experience not to forget.
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“
WITHOUT A DOUBT, WORKING WITH BREED MEANT THAT THE VISION WE HAD FOR OUR POP-UP SHOP WAS NOT ONLY ACCURATELY TRANSLATED INTO THE END PRODUCT, BUT WAS DONE WITH AN END FINISH AND ATTENTION TO DETAIL THAT WAS OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY.
The little details can often make all the difference and with Breed that was all considered. I would highly recommend them to anyone looking to do a pop-up retail space.” Wo rd s : N e i l Wa l l e r CO-FOUNDER SHORE PROJECTS
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People always find it easier to be a result of the past rather than a cause of the future. ANON
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SHORE PROJECTS
HOW LEAN R ETAI L CAN WORK FOR N EWBRAN DS. In the last 3 - 4 years the landscape of technology for online retail has seen dramatic innovation that anyone with a good brand and a strong product proposition can now have an online store presence that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the far more established retail brands. The change has come thanks to tools being made available that allow almost anyone, with a relatively minimal level of technical understanding and a modest budget, to create an online shopping presence that is as professional and credible as it comes.
a sensible level of risk and adopt the same lean approach with which the business had been able to develop with online. For us, the light bulb turned on when we came across the concept of Lean Retail, a low risk and short-term approach to a physical retail experience. For any new brand the way in which your products and your brand philosophy are presented to a consumer is so important. In reality, when you enter the physical retail world it’s going to be the case that most of the people will be coming across you for the very first time. Done right it can help the brand grow incredibly, done badly it can do the opposite.
Tools like Shopify, Bigcommerce, Volusion and Magneto are not only providing the ability to easily create a rock solid online presence, but with the way the tools are structured and the setup of the reports, they even provide insight and guidance into how to run the e-commerce side of things and manage a retail business. The inevitable result of this is a huge wave of new brands that have come to market and been able to achieve traction and success that would have been far more challenging and costly to do before. The new challenge for these brands, who have been operating in a very cost efficient environment, is how do you then take that next step from an online business into the physical retail world... a completely different ball game! We at Shore Projects, a British seaside inspired watch brand, launched in February of 2014 and by focusing exclusively online were able to achieve growth that was even beyond our wildest expectations.
Wo rd s : N e i l Wa l l e r CO-FOUNDER SHORE PROJECTS
We were then faced with the exact challenge of wanting to take the next step and have a physical retail solution that would allow us to get a foot in the traditional high street market, but at the same time wanting to take
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Much like with the online shopping landscape, this is not a brand new concept, it is however another part of the retail world which has undergone significant change in the last few years which make it more straight forward to do, more cost effective to do and easier to do it really well. Tools like Appear Here show amazing retail spaces that can be rented by the day, week or month at really competitive rates and several of the online shopping tools I mentioned earlier have now developed POS (point of sale) systems which allow you to professionally run a physical retail presence all from a tablet and all tied in with your online store management. It’s a new wave of pop-up shops, finding great locations and setting up on a flexible term of time where just as the tools have revolutionised the online space, a company with a good brand and strong product proposition can now create a physical retail presence that can stand shoulder to shoulder with big brands and that does not break the bank. The increasing popularity of such retail spaces and the innovative ways in which they are being setup is even starting to change the approach of some of the big brands that are now adopting this approach as well. So if you are thinking about how to take an online business in the world of physical retail and worried about finding a credible way to do it at a sensible budget then I’d definitely recommend researching the Lean Retail approach. I suspect it’s going to create a whole new wave of exciting physical retail propositions in the coming years.
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P H OT O B Y. M A R I O C A LV O
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BRAND AMPLIFICATION:
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GIVI NG LIVE EVENTS A
S O C I A L N A R R AT I V E
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Brands are now starting to realise that social goes beyond just likes, numbers and retweets, but it is more an effective tool to amplify consumer engagement and create conversations in fun and innovative ways. They’ve also seen the fantastic benefit a live experience can bring and how it can enhance a brand’s messaging for a consumer by allowing them to interact with the brand in their own way and on their terms. W o r d s : To m S c o t t D I R E C TO R , C R E AT E LO N D O N
Live and Experiential has tremendous power in the marketing world however there are limitations to its influence. For a live event can often simply be regarded as a singular snapshot moment in time. People may talk about it long afterwards but not to the scale and intensity, as brands would like. There needs to be life beyond live and the messaging needs to continue and create further conversation to give the event substance. And this is where social comes in. The many content led social platforms that are available to brands to use can give marketers the tools to own the conversations and interactions spawned by a live brand event. The use of a hashtag on Twitter or a consumer capturing a moment on a photo through Instagram ensures an experience is remembered beyond its lifetime...
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Brands can act as Community Managers via these social platforms and aggregate conversations to further enhance the message of a live event and the event’s overall experience. Putting a social platform such as Instagram or Vine to at the heart of a brand’s campaign give consumers the opportunity to echo the brand’s message and their interaction with these platforms drives lasting memories and encourages further amplification of an event. Brands need to think carefully about how best to adopt social into their live experience for it is not a quick fix solution to providing their event with some sort of after life. Integration is ultimately key and if marketers can use a channel that connects both the offline and the online, their brand’s message will extend beyond the live event.
P H OT O B Y. S A M X
CHANGE IS SLOW UNTIL IT ISN’T. THIS IS NO TIME TO BE A FAST FOLLOWER.
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BRAN DS STR I PPI NG
BAC K W I T H L E A N R E TA I L Is Physical Retail dying? That is the question many retail experts are asking today. New in-store terminologies and the blending of technology led innovations into in-store experiences may suggest that bricks and mortar has been given a new lease of life and is now in a stable condition, however retailers are doing their best to keep it from flat lining. Ok the suggestion that a physical retail environment is suddenly going to go into cardiac arrest may be slightly over exaggerated but the evolvement of consumer experience along with the continual rise of disruptive elements such as online, mobile, social and ever changing consumer expectation, means retailers need to keep on their toes and stay ahead of the game more than ever now. New ways of reinventing consumer experiences are constantly being put forward by marketers to ensure physical retail continues its revival and gains further momentum and strength. One solution that has reinvigorated physical retail and encouraged growth from new start up brands as well as established ones is Lean Retail. As we’ve touched upon in the last few sentences, retail is changing and not just the customer journey. For the retailer’s journey has changed drastically and can now be mapped out in new phases. We’ve seen more start-ups take their product to the high street after initially carving themselves out a niche market in the online marketplace. Thanks to the low overhead cost of online retail, brands can now be braver in pitching new products and be less fearful of the dominance some major retail brands have. And for many brands whose product has found success online, the next obvious step is finding a physical home and seeing if they can survive on the high street. But is it worth diving in the deep end straight away?
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For the bricks and mortar retail environment is a highly competitive one and one where caution should be met with pragmatism. In these fiscally constrained times combined with escalating long term rental costs, sustaining a high street retail business is certainly no walk in the park. With all these factors coming into play, this has paved the way for Lean Retail and manifested itself most prominently in the shape of pop-up shops. Pop-Up retail spaces’ popularity has soared in the past few years and that is thanks to the many rewarding benefits their business model offers to retailers. For they represent a low-risk, short term retail opportunity which give brands the platform to experiment with new products and test the water to see if their product has the legs to make it with the big boys. Pop-Up’s quirky and fun nature along with its short length of commitment makes them a desirable opportunity for retailers to take full advantage of – one that is cost-effective and will be a huge footfall driver. Retailers needn’t also worry about slow consumer periods when it comes to pop-up shops. The flexibility of their tenancy gives retailers more freedom of choice when it comes to choosing when they want to target the high street. Thanks again to their low cost and short-term benefit, retailers can bring in a pop-up shop when they please and exploit peak consumer periods such as Christmas and Easter, without being present for slow ones. As the physical retail world becomes more adventurous, expect more brands to embrace a lean retail approach going into 2016 and to see pop-up shops continually growing in retail hot spots across the UK.
Wo rd s : B r i a n B o a ke s MANAGING DIRECTOR, BREED
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brands@takumi.com
ST U DY S TA R T - U P S , NOT TR E N D R E PORTS
Wo rd s : J u l i a M i te l m a n S T R AT E G Y A N D I N S I G H T S , O N E L E A P LT D
Daniel Ek was 14 when he launched his first business, building commercial websites. Two years later, thanks to Napster, he would discover his two favourite bands: the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. This was 1999, and the global music industry was at a $30B peak. But peak turned to crash as pirate services blossomed and the music industry revenue halved. Most of the industry tackled this threat head-on, litigating to shut down pirate sites and lock down files. But Ek and co-founder Martin Lorentzon, inspired by their Napster experience, knew there was a better way. In April 2006, they started development on Spotify, aiming to displace, rather than destroy, piracy. It used a freemium business model - a concept foreign to the music industry of the time - to provide unlimited, subscription-based music streaming. Today, streaming accounts for 48% of global music industry revenue. Businesses invest heavily in trying to read the future. The market research industry is worth $40B. Corporates meticulously pore over trends reports based on insights from ‘watchers’, cultural commentators, and peers. Yet it still seems that start-ups are quicker to embrace new consumer behaviours and shifting expectations. Start-ups like Spotify and Netflix and AirBnB are changing the landscape of entire industries. What are the corporations missing? Entrepreneurs are likely to be first to capitalize on new trends because they live on the bleeding edge. It’s one of the few ways they can invade the crowded market stacked against them. They are constantly experimenting to create products that embrace newly relevant interests, or business models that better meets shifted expectations, or both. Mark Zuckerberg created the right product when he understood that, contrary to MySpace, people did want to connect with real people they already knew online, without the anonymity. Travis Kalanick hit on the right business model when, unlike traditional taxis, UberX expanded the driver pool to all Prius owners, turning customers into suppliers. As markets and attitudes change, entrepreneurs capture as much business as they can from incumbents. It’s evolve or die. successfully repurpose and tweak their services to provide a more tailored service to their customer.
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S O H OW D O C O R P O R AT I O N S T H AT D O N ’ T L I V E O N TH E EDGE GET I N O N T H E AC T I O N ? They study start-ups and talk to entrepreneurs to get practical, tangible ideas on how to turn trends into opportunities. Fashion retailers, for instance, could study Warby Parker to understand how made-for-Internet brands create deep customer connections. Telecommunications companies could study Slack to understand how search-first mentality can be leveraged to redefine the mechanisms by which we communicate. Consumer goods companies could study Deliveroo to understand how to meet desires for instant gratification at scale. Understanding how these start-ups have generated businesses from shifts requires not just observation, but interaction. Corporate teams can learn a lot from using these start-ups’ offers and, even more effectively, interacting with the entrepreneurs directly. A successful start-up is an amalgamation of many iterations and insights, twists and turns. Understanding these nuances, the inspirations, and the key decisions maximizes your chances of capitalizing on this trend in your own business. At OneLeap, we empower our clients to do just that, using our community of thousands of seasoned entrepreneurs to help FTSE100 corporations develop relevant new offers and compete more effectively. Corporations may not live on the bleeding edge, but they can capture its opportunities. Look up from those trend reports and focus on entrepreneurs. By embracing the start-ups that live or die on the bleeding edge, corporates can get closer to the insights of a changing future.
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HARD TO SAY
EASY TO LOVE A D / I M AG E
[sav-say] COLD-PRESSED | 100% NATURAL | NO ADDED SUGAR | AWARD WINNING savse.co.uk | @SavseSmoothies | #MySavse - 45 -
L O N G L I V E T O TA L R E TA I L
Wo rd s C h r i s H e n r y
As we close the book on another year in retail, marketers will have no doubt looked back and shaped their own opinion of how the Retail World in 2015 was defined. In a year where mobile became mainstream, Omni-Channel and Experience were still regarded as key and Consumer Loyalty continued to evolve; there was still one force that was driving all these changes – the customer. We’ve seen first hand retail become a responsive industry due to its ever-changing circumstances. Brands have had to constantly adapt to their consumer’s changing habits and react to the latest developments in customer experiences. Though the demands of the consumer has changed and their savvyness as shoppers has steered the course of the retail journey in a radical new direction - when we take into account the advancements of technology, we can see these changes, though disruptive, have given the bricks and mortar set up new impetus going into 2016. Still an important channel in the retail set-up, predictions that the high street would soon be dead were somewhat misleading. Quite the contrary, bricks and mortar has gained momentum and grown from strength to strength, becoming the epicenter and focal point of any retail experience. And now as 2016 rears its head, brands will be anticipating what happens next as retail will be on the move again. Much like its predecessor, retail in 2016 will focus heavily on the consumer and any strategy employed by retailers will have its customer at the heart of it. Brands will have to ensure their retail experiences challenge their consumers and make them a part of their journey in an immersive and interactive way.
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As bricks and mortar continues its retail revival, consumer expectations will be pushing towards a more experience driven retail environment. The consumer’s yearning to be part of something special and exciting will lead their retail destination to be more than just transactional and product focused.
Expect brands to embrace a Total Retail ideology in their approach to consumer experience in 2016. More and more, we will see brands produce experiences that are engaging for the consumer and are narrative driven. Telling the story of a brand through a retail experience will be imperative going forward in 2016. The physical store won’t just be a destination for purchasing products. It will go far beyond that and will be a highly sought after place to visit – the go to place for an experience. A customer journey that will stay with them, this new Total Retail experience will appeal to all senses and be accessible across all touch points and platforms. This growing trend gives retailers huge license to be as creative as possible in their retail set-up. The possibility to create truly memorable bespoke retail environments is exciting to think about and undoubtedly marketers will do there upmost to outdo each other this year. Those that ignore the signs of Total Retail will lose out if they refuse to adapt to these changing times. Total Retail will be a huge talking point in 2016 for brands but expect other pressing issues to dominate the ever-evolving debate around the customer experience.
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C U S T O M E R I N S I G H T:
U N D E R S TA N D I N G H OW CUSTO M E R S SHOP I N STOR E
Wo rd s : Ky ra O a te s HEAD OF PR AND EVENTS
RETAI LERS HAVE SEEN FI RST HAN D HOW COM PETITIVE TH EI R I N DUSTRY HAS BECOM E AN D TH E FOCUS HAS SH I FTED AWAY FROM PRODUCT OR PRICE, BUT M UCH MORE ON TH E CUSTOM ER. Brands have seen that they must not take their eye off the ball when it comes to the customer and it is they of course who drive their business forward and therefore it is up to retailers to ensure they are delivering enhanced service and customer experience. With data becoming more prominently accrued across stores, retailers and brands need to harness their consumer research and find new ways of deploying and leveraging new and innovative in-store marketing technology to achieve results. In this evolving battleground for consumer mind space, it is vital that retailers understand who is shopping in their store and when and then to tailor the communication to address their profile, shopping behaviour and frame of mind. Intensive research has identified the many types of customer and the different objectives they each have when it comes to venturing on a shopping trip. Customer data is found to be led more by mission rather than traditional demographics. Therefore, having more qualitative research to hand like this means retailers are able to truly accurately map customer flow and dwell. Furthermore, it allows us to understand the shoppers’ ability to be aware of, engage with and respond to relevant external targeted messaging during different stages of their shopping journey. We know as shoppers approach, enter and move around a store their mood and receptiveness to outside stimulus changes. Time, location and content are very often described as being the primary considerations when developing an effective retail channel messaging and content strategy. Content not only has to be compelling it must also be extremely relevant and delivered when the shopper is receptive to such messaging, in order to interrupt, engage and influence behaviour. When we talk about relevancy, this is a question of delivering the right content, at the right time and in the right place. It is only when these three factors come together that the chance of influencing customer behaviour is optimized. Brands are always keen to discover about their customer’s frame of mind and essentially, frame of mind comes down to one very simple question – why spend a small fortune on promotional messaging when customers are unreceptive to or psychologically unable to engage with the message?
message to a ‘mission shopper’, perhaps via a digital 6 sheet at the store threshold. But, as a mission shopper, would you truly be receptive to such a message? I very much doubt it, and there is qualitative research available to support this. However, shoppers who enter the store intending to browse are a different proposition and research has proven that engaging browsing consumers via compelling window messaging can be highly effective in driving footfall into the store. Therefore, the most effective campaign will see a retailer strike a balance between messaging browsers and mission shoppers. With this in mind, the primary aims of threshold screens should be to aid navigation, accelerating flow & maintaining a clear threshold. I’ve seen first hand examples of large retail chains that have integrated digital with traditional signage throughout the store and at particularly at the point of sale. One example I remember there being what’s known as a ‘power zone’, which was adjacent to the entrance. This zone featured a mixture of several prominent displays with highly promoted supply brand products and impulse purchase items and its objective was to encourage spend from customers when they are fresh upon entering the store. This particular store would likely to have found better fortune repositioning this zone closer to the checkout and thus targeting customers later in their ‘journey’. Research has shown that shoppers instinctively like to familiarise themselves with the store layout and becoming comfortable with the environment. Thus, when a store tries to bombard irrelevant promotional messaging at the start of a customer journey, the customer can become bewildered and disorientated. The simple learning from this is that your messaging strategy always has to align closely to the needs and frame of mind of your customers or it will be ignored, or even worse, it will confuse your audience and undermine the customer experience. Despite innovations in technology, and the fact that retailers now know more about their customers than ever before, in-store digital technology is still failing to deliver what it promises in many cases. Very often, in this scenario, the brand promise is compromised in the one environment where the retailer can most engage and influence brand perception - the store itself. This is due to a combination of internal and external factors, and a central problem with communication.
Brands need to target consumers when they are most receptive to the message. For example, you could deliver a very powerful promotional - 48 -
Despite innovations in technology, and the fact that retailers now know more about their customers than ever before, in-store digital technology is still failing to deliver what it promises in many cases. Very often, in this scenario, the brand promise is compromised in the one environment where the retailer can most engage and influence brand perception - the store itself. This is due to a combination of internal and external factors, and a central problem with communication. A common internal problem with all elements of in-store marketing is that it is not sufficiently aligned with the overall marketing message. While non-store marketing is planned and carried out at board level through well planned and executed, multi-channel marketing programmes, in many cases the in-store approach is carried out at a much lower level, meaning it misses out on expertise and consistency of message. Logistical issues and the busy day to day business of running a store can also mean that time pressures limit planning and execution that can go into point-of-sale marketing. Deciding between targeted and general point-of-sale messaging can also be a difficult balance to get right, as messaging can be counterproductive if it is designed to appeal to too wide a customer base. This is further exacerbated of course when suppliers brand promotional PoS material and retailers’ in-store customer communications plans are misaligned. Problems cannot however be attributed purely to in-store miscommunication. External factors also contribute to the effectiveness of the message, and how accurately customers are targeted. Digital providers need to understand and have access to internal research in order to accurately tailor technology and content to appeal to a specific customer profile. Again, the key is communication of the store’s message and marketing strategy among all channels, so that the final solution is both aligned to the target audience and the retailer. The other important consideration is the integration of digital with other in-store marketing mediums. While in some cases digital screens have replaced other point-of-sale material, screen network operators can make the mistake of viewing them as a separate channel from more traditional point-of-sale. A complete, effective point-of-sale marketing strategy uses targeted content, aligned through different communication channels to ensure the maximum possible sales uplift. For in-store digital to achieve its full potential, it is crucial that it is seen as an integral part of the overall customer messaging strategy. Without addressing these issues, retailers will not have a chance to experience the impressive ROI that a successful digital strategy can produce, and see the full potential of the medium.
P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G - 49 -
“THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE BEAUTY OF THEIR DREAMS.”
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20 16
P H OT O B Y. T H E H O W P H OT O G R A P H E R
A NEW KIND OF EXPERIENCE
I often start meetings by asking people “What was the last brand experience you had?” Responses vary from the gritty House of Vans Experience in Waterloo to the polished Nissan Experience at the O2 or the Siemens Crystal at the Royal Docks to the high-flying Emirates Experience in North Greenwich. And rarely does a week go by without a friend or colleague with young children talking about a weekend trip to a brand experience like the Harry Potter Studio Tour, Shrek’s Adventure in County Hall or LEGOLAND, Windsor. Very rarely do I hear an answer that involves a traditional retail experience such as buying a Miu Miu handbag at Selfridges or buying my car at the local BMW dealer. One rule is true of all the answers I get: you cannot actually buy a pair of Vans, a Nissan electric car or an Emirates flight to Dubai because at each destination the brand is focusing on the experiential not the transactional. As such, it is becoming abundantly clear that to describe a ‘brand experience’ in 2016 as an exchange of cash for a product/service is a misnomer. Further, it only serves to massively undersell the creativity of today’s brands and the intelligence and demands of the consumers they are targeting. So, what do well-executed brand experiences have in common? Well, firstly they understand that influencing a consumer’s behaviour happens way before they get to - 52 -
the cash desk. Therefore, they put the emphasis on experience not consumption and purposely draw the focus of the relationship away from a transactional purchase. A consumer’s brand memory and portfolio is complex and so providing learning opportunities in a unique brand environment is an intelligent way to build deeper relationships with your customer, to become front of mind when considering a purchase. We have seen this approach adopted by the many brands. Take for example the recent Louis Vuitton Series 3 exhibition, which takes a multisensory ‘meet the maker’ approach to promoting their brand to a wider audience including live Atelier workshops and interactive studios. During the exhibition, visitors are not once greeted with the half-hearted question “Can I help you at all?” and the subsequent awkward “No, I’m just browsing thanks’ retort. The experience is designed to cultivate a deeper brand relationship with the almost immeasurable objective of increasing consumer affinity. The showcasing of a brand’s craft and expertise has evolved from being a closely guarded secret to become an impactful marketing tool.
Brands hope that the warm glow consumers glean from these experiences weeks or months earlier drives greater conversion success when it matters to them. Brand experiences seduce consumers, making them more receptive to other forms of branded content and importantly, even digital natives enjoy them. The good news keeps coming for brands executing these experiences well; millennials love them and they after all will make up at least 50% of the global workforce by 2020. Millennials carry unusual traits, they are unpredictable, don’t buy spontaneously and are staying at home longer, making their behavior in the build up to purchase (or not) all the more difficult to shape. All things digital come naturally to them but when it comes to learning and skills they prefer face-toface contact. We have given birth to an audience that cannot be predicted based on traditional purchase habits and retail spend. The psychological profile and brand memory of a Millennial is like nothing we have seen before. Dr Tim Denison, Director of Retail Intelligence at Ipsos Retail Performance, points out that recent surveys both in the US and the UK have shown consistently that over three quarters of Millennials would rather spend money on experiences than products and admit that their best memories come from experiences. “It is certainly the case that Millennials have a different view from previous generations in terms of what they value. For them, it is more about doing things than owning things, cognisant that great experiences leave indelible, irreplaceable memories. Indeed, fear of missing out is a key psychological trigger for them.” So, what happens next after you
have had your brand experience? We are already seeing progressive brands leading with experience and then closing the consumer journey with retail, not the other way around. Take the impending Tesla and Dyson concept stores due to open in Central London, which strike a good balance of experience versus retail. We will continue to see the physical environment take on a great role in the shopper experience, where brands can radically configure their spaces to reflect their values and culture. Will any of this make the consumer journey any easier to predict? Only time will tell, but it is clear that a new generation of consumer expects a meaningful experience from a brand before they part with their cold, hard cash. The future store environment will have less ‘Can I help you?” and more ‘Let me show you’. With this trend the one thing we can safely predict, the future looks bleak for brands that don’t have anything interesting to say or show. The brands of the future will share first, sell later.
Wo rd s : B e n R e e d HEAD OF ENGAGEMENT AT S I LV E R T O W N
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SILVERTOWN WHERE BRANDS MAKE, SHOW AND SHARE
www.silvertownlondon.com @silvertownldn
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Breed has worked on a series of promotional and press events for premium jeans brand Levi’s, acting as the brand’s event producer. These events have been catered for a variety of audiences ranging from the everyday consumer public to industry peers and press representatives. Each with their own objective and aims, the requirement for each event has been as complex as the next and the successful delivery of these has been down to the organisation and management from Breed’s skilled team. Breed are excited to be working with Levi’s in the coming months and help take the brand on new journeys throughout 2016. Most recently Breed produced an internal event for Levi’s jeans that was attended by top press and fashion industry professionals. This event showcased five of their new autumn and winter ranges for 2015/16. Taking place at a location in stylish Fitzrovia, the event was over one day and would be attended by 80 daytime guests and 150 evening guests, along with press and fashion industry professionals. Guests would be treated with a bespoke food and drinks reception. As event producers, Breed took responsibility for an extensive set of duties that included: lighting, graphics, catering, bespoke garment rail creations, set dressing and props, creative design, full client and supplier management, operations logistics and all H&S document creation. There were a varying number of logistical requirements and elements to manage in this event, to ensure it was a smooth success. The event was tailored to Levi’s needs and showcased perfectly the new range in an environment that was inspirational to the brand’s continual story as a premium jeans brand.
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Cultural engagement, from the grassroots up
URBANNERDSCOLLECTIVE.COM There’s nobody nerdier about youth and culture - 58 -
P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G
The future belongs to those who prepare for it today. M A LC O L M X
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K E E P I N G I T R E L E VA N T :
BRAN D AUT H O R ITY I N R E TA I L Wo r d s : C h r i s H e n r y EDITOR
With day-to-day life almost universally dominated by technology and its rapidly growing advancements, we’ve seen tech become, not so much a focal point but a very prominent feature of modern marketing campaigns that embrace new forms of media and messaging.
up brands well in terms of awareness and exposure, it is not particularly inspiring for the consumer to be simply handed a freebie on the street. For the consumer and more importantly the brand, the journey essentially ends there and there is little post-event or campaign engagement or increased level of discussion; “Hey guys, a drinks brand gave me a free bottle of their product, made my day!” Think again if you believe you’ll have consumers talking about a campaign like this on an unprecedented scale on all platforms.
With a smart phone for example, we’ve seen its role elevate itself beyond being a device that texts and calls, but now something that plays videos, takes pictures, pays for items and much more. For that reason, we’ve seen technology such as smart phones become the enablers of a social, live or experiential experience. In other words, the tool that connects the objective or purpose of a campaign, and the targeted consumer. Tech evolvement has had a compound effect on our personalities as humans and consumers, making us more demanding and wanting things now rather than later and this ultimately is continually making it more difficult for us to be impressed. Going back to the idea of technology as an enabler of experiences, this plays well into the idea that we as humans have become more difficult to wow and entertain, what with us never having it so good thanks to modern technology. Now taking this thinking to campaigns in the experiential and live space, despite brands still adopting freebie and giveaway strategies, though this does show signs of some effectiveness and would certainly serve new start
Although social and tech has made us greedy, where it has made us harder to impress means we can be actually willing to work in some way (as long as its fun and fits into our lifestyle usually) for a freebie and this is where we come back again to the notion that technology has acted as the enabler of experiential campaigns. With social now acting as a new form of currency, brands are beginning to tap more into the idea of using social media platforms as a way of rewarding (and entertaining) the consumer whilst helping produce user generated content and online and offline discussion for the brand. More and more we are seeing campaigns that inspire, entertain and reward consumers through use of specific hash-tags and innovative tech that embrace social media use; social powered vending machines, social powered printing devices, social powered drink dispensing machines...the possibilities are really endless.
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Where brands and marketers have to tread carefully is seeing whether their campaign (or big idea) is the right fit for their brand and its image, and essentially whether or not they have the authority to broadcast this campaign to audiences.
the consumer understands, interprets and perceives the brand as a human. We’ve seen first hand here at Breed the positive results a social campaign can yield, if it hits home on relevancy, authority and imagination. Working with our partners CreateLondon on a live social campaign for global cosmetic brand Benefit Cosmetics, we produced an experiential campaign that embraced social as a means of currency whilst utilising technology’s growing role in society today, but in a way that caught consumer’s attention and had them talking about the experience both offline and online.
Authority is extremely important today in marketing campaigns. Authority equates to respect and without respect, people don’t always listen to what you have to say. Looking at social in particular, many brands try their best to engage in topical discussions which aren’t relevant to them and by them participating in these conversations, they no doubt lose respect from the social public as they’re seen to be involving themselves in something that they have no right to be part of, all for the sake of a couple of more likes and retweets A great example of this was the Royal Baby twitter storm – there were some clever, fun posts but a number of them appeared to be reaching and quite desperate. Apply this thinking to live experiences, brands that aim to execute a campaign that has no relevancy to them will see their experience become almost like white noise. Another campaign, that was recently activated, an acquaintance of mine recently criticized for its customer journey, also could earn criticism for its relevance and authority as a campaign. Not going into too much detail about it, but the campaign involved confectionary goods and cabs – what’s the connection and relevancy of the two? Now taking into account thoughts on technology’s role in social and experiential, the ever demanding and hard to impress consumer, and this idea of authority and relevancy - brands must invest great time, effort and strategic thinking in ways that they can inspire the new tech savvy generation in a way that fits seamlessly into their lifestyle, will have them talking about their experience and most importantly will have them listening in the first place whilst always being relevant to their brand identity and how
Encouraging Benefit Cosmetics brand enthusiasts and passing shoppers to tweet a simple hashtag using their mobile devices that would reward them with a small free Benefit Cosmetics tester product, Benefit Cosmetics experienced a huge increase in brand conversation, particularly on social media with the campaign’s designated hashtag acting as an aggregator for the social conversation the hashtag spawned. The Twitter powered vending machine that was the focal point of the campaign, was a powerful and effective tool that brought the whole experience together and was a huge talking point with the device, both simple and yet still innovative, bringing huge levels of footfall its way. The machine’s presence and role in this campaign was relevant to the objective of the campaign and Benefit Cosmetics certainly had the authority as a brand to use social in this way, with their original campaign objectives, the campaign itself and its results all being synonymous with each other. As social and technology enhance, so to does live experiences and marketing campaigns. Brands are continually researching new and inventive ways to incorporate this growingly important medium and aggregator of consumer conversation. But in order for success, first your audience must take note and listen, and that comes with respect. And for audiences to respect you, you must have the right level of authority, and this comes with relevancy to your identity. Brands achieving that fine balance will be on to a winner, and consumers will listen and more importantly react in a positive way.
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STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
TO LEVERAGE MISSION CONENT Wo rd s : C l a u d e J o h n s o n FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE D I R E C TO R O F T H E B L AC K F I V E S F O U N D AT I O N
Claude Johnson is the founder and executive director of the Black Fives Foundation, a US-based tax-exempt 501(c)3 public charity whose mission is to preserve, promote, and teach the history of African Americans in basketball prior to the NBA, during a period known as the Black Fives Era that spanned from the early 1900s through 1950 when the league became racially integrated. Since our formation and re-organization as a not-forprofit in 2013, and prior to that dating back to 1996 when we were incorporated as a for-profit entity known as Black Fives, Inc., strategic partnerships have always been a major factor in our success. Over the years we have had what for us have been game-changing partnerships with the leading footwear companies Nike and Converse, with prominent broadcasters ESPN and The History Channel, with the world class Barclays Center sports arena, the esteemed New-York Historical Society Museum, the National Basketball Players Association and premium lifestyle sports apparel brand ’47 among others. These relationships have been great and we believe that this is only the beginning. Working with others is the best way to make history now. Our efforts originally began in 1996. That was the year the National Basketball Association, where I was employed as Director of International Licensing, celebrated the league’s 50th anniversary. To commemorate that season they published an 800-page book, The NBA Encyclopaedia of Basketball. It contained less than three pages on only two of the game’s early all-black teams, the New York Renaissance Big Five and the Harlem Globetrotters, founded in 1923 and 1929, respectively. But I knew there were many more teams and much more to this history. That’s because Arthur Ashe, the tennis legend, had written A Hard Road To Glory, a history of African American athletes going back to the 1600s, which included a section on basketball in which Ashe listed numerous all-black teams. These teams had amazing names that were inescapably intriguing to me, like the Smart Set Athletic Club of - 62 -
Brooklyn, founded in 1904, and many others. Why was there such a huge gap in information (or understanding or interest) between the NBA’s book and Ashe’s research? My effort to answer this question and fill that void compelled me to begin a journey of discovery that I have been on ever since. At first I didn’t know where to begin, but by scrolling through reels upon reels of microfilm of historical black newspapers like the New York Age and the Pittsburgh Courier, for many months, I eventually found out that there were dozens of African American basketball teams that played numerous cities in America long before the NBA, going all the way back to the early 1900s. So I began to chronicle their history. I wrote as much as possible about the teams, the players, the events, and the context, using whatever documentation I found. My eyes were bleary but I never grew weary. As I was doing this, I began realizing that these teams and their identities were special. So special that they had to be preserved. I also felt that they could transcend their historical value one day, perhaps into expressions of social consciousness via consumer products.
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47brand.com
From then on, every time I discovered a once-forgotten team that had an amazing handle, a cool “look,” a relevant cultural message, or a historically important legacy, no matter how obscure, I submitted a trademark application for its name and logo in order to protect those rights. I accepted the fact that realizing my vision was a very long way off, so I just kept researching and documenting.
innocent victims. But as a result of these events, many people developed a renewed sense of urgency in pursuing their life’s work and passions, because we were reminded that nothing is promised from one day to the next. A month later, I was laid off from Benetton. However, my employment agreement contained a severance clause guaranteeing two years of salary, so that’s when I dove into the Black Fives experience full time.
While doing this I also began collecting historical African American basketball items related to this period; much was available on eBay and our archive of artefacts, photographs, ephemera, objects, memorabilia, and related material grew at a steady pace.
As time went on, the trademarks for which I had applied were granted, one by one, and had developed into a solid portfolio of historically accurate intellectual property, backed up by extensive research. This was around 2002, during the height of a craze in demand for vintage authentic sports jerseys known as “throwbacks,” so I decided to see if any of the leading sportswear producers might be interested in licensing our IP to make Black Fives Era throwbacks. Alas, none of them were, so we decided to create our own collection. Next, I was on a plane to South Korea, where many of the vintage apparel factories were located, and soon my designs were being developed for production.
At the time, no one in the mainstream yet knew even the first thing about this lost but important sliver of sports history. The NBA didn’t know, the Basketball Hall of Fame had nothing; the Library of Congress was unaware. People weren’t running to us or seeking this out. There was no precedent or blueprint so we had to begin organically. Therefore, our focus was always on outbound promotion and education. Meanwhile, we had a limited budget and the social media platforms of today like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Tumblr hadn’t existed. In fact, corporate websites were barely just being introduced, let alone do-yourself website builders or CMS sites like WordPress. Nevertheless, we knew that online would give us the only affordable way to establish ourselves, promote this history, and educate the public. In the beginning, it was a crude process but developing an online presence was something that we knew would evolve with the times. Then tragedy struck, on September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York City claiming the lives of thousands of
We finally launched an active (yet basic!) website in July 2003, to coincide with the launch of a series of print advertisements in SLAM Magazine that featured our new line of vintage basketball jerseys, which we were shipping out of my garage to urban street wear retailers across the country. Meanwhile, our very first SLAM ad caught the eye of the wardrobe director for Black Entertainment Television (BET) in New York City, who asked us to supply jerseys for their two most popular after-school television personalities. Soon, Darian “Big Tigger” Morgan was wearing our throwbacks as the host of Big Tigger in the Basement; a talk show featuring invited hip-hop artists. So was A.J. Calloway, the host of BET’s top rated show, 106 & Park, a rap music countdown program. Of huge significance was the fact that we also got the coveted “styles provided by Black Fives, Inc.” credit at the end of these shows. One has to keep in mind that we did not have a “product placement” budget or connections to music moguls nor celebrity tie-ins nor investor backing. We had zero clout. Our efforts were strictly DIY.
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Soon our apparel styles were appearing in music videos donned by Ludacris, The Roots, and others, including Xzibit, who was the host of MTV’s mad successful car show Pimp My Ride, which at the time commanded worldwide popularity. When X wore our Black Fives branded jersey in the famous Lime Green VW Beetle episode, it put our corporate logo on the map. One of the biggest suppliers for the throwback jersey craze was a sports nostalgia boutique in Atlanta called Distant Replays. It was every athlete and entertainer’s go-to destination for these expensive, hard to find fashion statements. One day the storeowner, Andy Hyman, called me excitedly to report that NBA superstar Allen Iverson had just left the store after purchasing nine of our Black Fives jerseys. Wow! That was really cool. Having our designs worn by major celebrities and being mentioned in America’s finest sports weekly alongside the biggest players in the jersey game and their A-list customers, well, I guess in some ways that meant we had arrived. All the while, our go-to online site for all things Black Fives was still in a mode of self-discovery. I kept writing blog articles and we kept building our email list. We sent out broadcasts of our newsletter to promote this history and share updates about our progress. To our dismay, just as we were hitting our stride, the throwback jersey craze suddenly died. Its death was painful to everyone in the industry. The market was saturated and couldn’t sustain itself at the exorbitant prices being charged. When knockoffs from South Korea hit our shores it was over. Many of our best retail customers were going out of business. As they disappeared, so did our receivables, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, which we never recovered.
But in the midst of all this, we heard from Nike; they were interested in working with us because of the storytelling possibilities they saw connected to this inspiring African American history.
One way I did this was through school visits. Those came about because teachers would see our website or hear me on the radio and get in touch. “We want you to speak with our students,” they would say, followed by, “but we’re not sure we have the budget.” The idea of charging teachers to speak with their kids never worked for me, so I always obliged at no cost; this became my small way of making a difference. What I learned through this is that I really enjoyed the process of creating relevance with students by combining history and sports to their own communities, especially in urban environments. The other way I got involved with a given community was through methodical advocacy for the proper recognition of its local Black Fives Era pioneers and their achievements. New York City had many such contributors, but the man I got to know best was a former pro basketball star named John Isaacs. John had led the all-black Harlembased New York Renaissance Five and Washington Bears to World Championship of Professional Basketball titles, in 1939 and 1944, respectively. He was one of the few remaining living pioneers and we lent our voice to the justified effort to get him inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Though we were unsuccessful in getting him enshrined during his lifetime, I am happy to report that John was finally inducted into the Hall earlier this year. He and I became friends over the years, and John was a technical advisor to our company until passing away in 2009. Also this year, the City of New York renamed a Bronx street after him posthumously. My relationship with John and his family made me realize that one way to keep this history alive in spite of the fact that there are no more living pioneers was to reach out to their descendants and develop a community involving them. We have done some amazing events with descendants and actually I try to have at least one descendant of a Black Fives Era pioneer on our Board of Directors.
Their interest turned into a licensing partnership between us, which resulted not only in a quantumfold expansion of our visibility but also a bulletproof validation of this history and our efforts to resurrect its value. Ours was an entirely new sports genre, created in a spare room, with nothing but a desk, some books, a library card, a computer, and a website. That was certainly a proud moment. But this milestone was even more profound because of its social, cultural, educational, and community implications. I had always had an eye toward giving back to the locales where the teams of the Black Fives Era originally played–the biggest were Harlem, Brooklyn, Newark, the District of Columbia, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.
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Transition Game At the conclusion of our licensing partnership with Nike, we redirected and refocused our efforts toward research, writing, artefact acquisition, photographic image management, website enhancements, content promotion, and intellectual property maintenance. We began to have some success with the licensing of our digital content, a sign that interest in this history continues at a steady pace. Our social media presence, though relatively small, has also grown over time. We focus on having the right audience, not just the hugest number of followers or likes. Our patience was substantiated in 2012 when the developers of the newest NBA arena, the Barclays Center, soon to be the home of the Brooklyn Nets professional basketball franchise, hired a curator to identify creative works that were culturally and historically significant to the surrounding community, which could adorn its interior. By fate, the curator, renowned art historian and author Sarah Lewis, who today is an Assistant Professor at Harvard University, already knew about the history of the Black Fives and about our organization’s historical archive, so she asked if we would be interested in compiling a set of Brooklyn-related vintage African American basketball images for her to propose to the Barclays Center ownership, a group that included Jay-Z. They loved our compilation and how it tied their facility to the history of the neighbourhoods nearby. Subsequently, the arena permanently installed six muralsized enlargements of our images at prominent locations throughout its concourse. The unveiling of those images, on February 10, 2013, created an opportunity to celebrate Brooklyn’s important black basketball history and the Barclays Center allowed us to invite over 40 descendants of the individuals who appear in those vintage images to participate in the festivities. The date coincided with a Nets home game versus the San Antonio Spurs and was officially declared as “Black Fives Day” for the City of New York by the Mayor’s Office. Those descendants were hosted in the owners’ suite and then brought down to center court during halftime for a special recognition ceremony. It was a night to remember. We also used the occasion to announce ourselves as the Black Fives Foundation. The new organization had been incorporated as a 501(c)3 public charity a month earlier. This step was made complete in October 2013, when I donated to the new foundation as a gift the entire historical archive of Black Fives Era artefacts, photographs, ephemera, objects, memorabilia, and related items previously belonging to me and to the original for-profit entity, Black Fives, Inc., as well as the corporation’s complete portfolio of intellectual property, including trademarks, logos, copyrights, domain names, social media handles, common law rights, and goodwill. Why would I do that? Because it felt better. More aligned. More passionate. Now I could focus on research and education and school visits and descendants without the constant worry of selling merchandise or charging fees. Running a not-for-profit is still a business, with income and budgets and expenses. But the difference is this: while some people might buy a nice tee shirt every once in a while, most people find it more meaningful to support a cause they really believe in, all the time. This was proven out almost immediately when one of our invitees to the Barclays Center event, Stephen Edidin, the Chief Curator for the New-York Historical Society Museum, invited me to guest curate and stage a major exhibition of our historical archive, which has since grown into the largest archive of its kind known to exist. The result, the Black Fives Exhibition, received critical acclaim and worldwide media coverage, including a feature on BBC World News America and a superlative full-page review in the New York Times.
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
TO LEVERAGE MISSION CONENT Wo rd s : C l a u d e J o h n s o n FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE D I R E C TO R O F T H E B L AC K F I V E S F O U N D AT I O N
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The exhibition, which included several hundred historical artefacts on display in the museum’s Civil Rights Gallery from March to July 2014, chronicled over 100 years of African American contributions to the game of basketball. Yet, almost exactly one month after its opening, an audio recording surfaced in which Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is heard telling his assistant not to bring black people to his games, including Magic Johnson. Less than a week later, Sterling was banned from the NBA for life by Adam Silver, the league’s new commissioner. A month after that, Sterling was forced to sell the team. He had been one of the league’s longest tenured owners.
resulted in the company asking to partner with us for a line of Black Fives merchandise. Jared previously had worked for Mitchell & Ness, the leading supplier for the aforementioned throwback jersey craze, and remembered me kindly from those days. This partnership has been tremendous. The Black Fives Collection by ‘47 was unveiled in June 2015, with launch events in New York City, London, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, and Berlin, and has been universally praised. Their products are not just tee shirts or caps; they are important stories waiting to be told.
I like to think that our exhibition played a small role in the way things turned out. We had many prominent visitors, but perhaps none were more important than NBA commissioner Adam Silver himself. First, he attended on his own, unofficially; with his office telling me afterward that Adam thought the exhibition was “terrific.” Then, the fact that he even had the time and wherewithal to go in the first place, considering that all hell was breaking loose with the scandal at the time, was amazing. And finally, Adam later showed me the stash of personal iPhone photos he had taken during his visit. That was one of the coolest and most poignant and surreal experiences I’ve ever had, because, once again, one must recall that we started out and in many respects are still a do-it-yourself operation.
Soon after we partnered with ’47, we heard from the National Basketball Players Association. The NBPA is the league’s labor union; its rank and file being the NBA players themselves. Their new executive director, Michele Roberts, had seen our licensed Black Fives Book of Postcards on the desk of a fellow exec and it caught her eye. By fate, I had given this person a copy of the postcard book as a gift a year or so earlier, before she was hired by the Michele. We were subsequently invited to apply for a charitable grant offered by the NBPA Foundation, the union’s philanthropic arm, which we received this past summer. It was an invitation-only grant, so one can imagine our gratitude and appreciation at being identified and recognized in this manner. Moreover, it helped us improve and expand our operations and programming.
Another important visitor to the Black Fives Exhibition was Jared Wheeler, the historian for the premium sports lifestyle apparel company ‘47. His visit sparked an internal conversation that
In particular, in support of our mission to preserve and promote this incredible sports history, one of our primary objectives was to have our historical archive of Black Fives Era artefacts professionally
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organized and properly stored. Toward that end, we recently partnered with a third party archival services partner and have established the new Black Fives Historical Archive. This repository, under our control, is now housed in a state-of-the-art museum-quality storage facility outside of Atlanta, Georgia, where it is maintained by a dedicated staff of professional archivists in compliance with National Archives and Records Administration safeguarding and digitization standards. Achieving this evolutionary step allows us to expand the size of our archive to preserve more historically important items; those that we acquire as well as those that are donated or placed into our care by descendants of early African American basketball pioneers. Not only that, but every item received into the Black Fives Historical Archive is numbered, labelled, indexed, cataloged, photographed, and scanned into a searchable online database. This is a big deal for us and it points to the future, because as the interest in this new sports genre grows, so will the demand for research and the number of opportunities to leverage the associated digital content. This was not possible in the days before social media or digitization. Going forward, our vision is to continue engaging in strategic partnerships, because as anyone can see, our experience has been that one good turn in the faithful service of our mission always leads to another.
CAR E E R S OF
TO M O R ROW HOW I BECAM E A SOCIAL M EDIA BUTTERFLY. Doone Roisin is the social media butterfly and Fashion Editor at finder. com.au. At 26 she’s built her career from a love of people and social media, and cultivated a lifestyle as a digital nomad working full time while traveling the globe. Doone talks about how she found herself in this career and where the future of social careers are heading. Plus why brands today are investing in these ‘social butterflies’ to deliver their advertising messages and what are the secrets to ‘social’ success. It’s crazy to think during high school (and to some extent my studies) that social media would play a part in my career path. Heck, I hadn’t yet grasped MySpace let alone Facebook when it crept into our social circles. In 2012 I scored an internship working for Australia’s largest online retailer, THE ICONIC, and it was soon-to-be a dream come true; there was the fetching coffees side of it, doing odd jobs around the office no one else wanted to do, and my favourite part of the day - maintaining the Facebook account. Which was NBD. My not-so-healthy addiction to the Internet was growing and I was fast becoming BFFs with 10,000 other fashion lovers online all the while flitting between events and press showings. It was this cool job my friends wanted and my Mum didn’t quite understand. In no time at all I had my first business cards that read ‘Professional Facebooker”, my boss thought it was hilarious! Fast forward a few years I was heading up the brand’s social media channels and blog, writing a blog on the side and working my own social persona - a resident inside the social-sphere. Social suddenly got serious. Looking at the landscape now, it’s exciting to watch the evolution of careers in the social space. Roles that fall into paid social media are data heavy and analytical driven vs. the content side of things that attract people with a flair for the written word and an eye for what’s visually appealing - and society (as well as brands) have caught on to the importance of social currency. And the proof is in the pudding, the more success stories we see coming from models built entirely from social media are evidence that this is the way of the future.
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A shining example is Australia’s Black Milk Clothing; the brand built itself into a global empire on a $0 marketing budget and (da-da!) social media. It’s an interesting time for today’s generation looking to tackle a career in social, sure, you still get the, “But what is it that you actually do?” comments, but I think the perception has definitely shifted from being what was once considered an ‘aloof’ job to something well respected. Getting started in social can pave the way for all sorts of different jobs; digital, marketing, advertising - across all kinds of industries. Right now I’m traveling the world and working remotely for an Aussie company called finder.com.au and as the Fashion Editor a big chunk of what I do is bringing to life our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest for the fashion vertical. To the brands out there just getting on-board the train, being authentic and adding value to your audience are key in building a successful social presence. In an already oversaturated world of content, finding your point of difference and purpose is where you’ll shine bright. Teaming up with the right influencers for your brand can yield outstanding results. With today’s bloggers being thrown in the same bucket as celebrities, and peer-to-peer recommendations being the #1 way to spread the good word about your product and services, we can expect to see more strategic partnerships between brands and digital influencers - at a price. This social stuff is serious business! It’s just the beginning of this generation’s ‘dream job’ list and the beauty of being a social media butterfly in the digital world is that you can do it anywhere in the world. We’re at a point in time where we can quit the rat race and design an all-new 9-5 lifestyle that’s something extraordinary. Let’s be friends! Say hello on Instagram-Twitter-Snapchat @ dooneroisin.
Wo rd s : D o o n e R o i s i n S O C I A L M E D I A A N D FA S H I O N E D I TO R , F I N D E R
P H OT O B Y. G U D B J Ö R N VA LG E I R S S O N - 69 -
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POWE R TO T H E
(SOCIAL) PEOPLE
Wo r d s : C h r i s H e n r y EDITOR
WITH I N US ALL TH ERE IS TH E POTENTIAL TO ENTERTAI N AN D I NSPI RE OTH ERS. PRE-SOCIAL AN D DIGITAL, IT WAS TH E BRAVE FEW WHO HAD TH E DRIVE AN D SWAGGER TO GRAB TH E OPPORTUN ITI ES AVAI LABLE TO TH EM AN D BECOM E SOCIAL ICONS. Call them entertainers, call them storytellers – these cultural disciples were the ones society would listen to and be influenced by. In this past analog age, the digital storytellers of tomorrow were no doubt instigated with a sense of passion by these influencers and a spark was therefore born and would be ignited when the time came. Fast forward 15 or 20 years later, Social and Technology has given the digital generation in waiting, the necessary tools and platforms to tell their story to unrestricted audiences and become the new influencers in today’s social economy. The journalist has become the blogger, the director has become the vlogger, the model has moved from the catwalk to the bedroom, the photographer has become the Instagrammer and the live reporter has become the live tweeter, and so much more. These storytellers are creating more content day by day to growing communities and with this, a seismic shift has occurred. Where the traditional channels of messaging were once merely limited to television, film, radio, and outdoor, we’ve seen the digital age birth new creators each day and new channels, streams and platforms that are reaching new audiences with powerful and influential messaging and shaping the society we now inhibit. People have become the new channels and marketing platforms, and each comes with their own audiences, be it mass or niche. Where the go-to channels 20 years ago would be the few terrestrial channels and later satellite, social has fragmented these audiences and at the same time changed their viewing habits and paved the way for the apportionment of media in new forms.
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Today, just about anything can be consumed as rich and popular content by the viewing public. The immediacy and most importantly freedom of online has changed our tastes as consumers. Everyone can be heard and anyone can watch. We’ve seen youngsters gain online notoriety by simply posting video tutorials on how to correctly pose with something as inane as a baseball cap, amateur photographers taking natural shots of vintage items on their Instagram accounts, and everyday foodies write about their nutritional exploits on their blogs. Fluffy as it all sounds, we’ve seen first hand there are growing audiences for this organically created content that is far less manipulated to any agenda driven piece of mainstream media. Brands now have seen the opportunity to invest in these new channels = people. Using this new generation of storytellers as a platform to broadcast their message, they are able to aggregate conversations via these increasingly powerful communities. Where we were once welcomed into the worlds of the Oxo Family, the R Whites Man and the Milk Tray Man; social has naturally created its own characters which have been embraced by today’s brands and their work is being utilised and projected to new audiences – at great financial reward for the creator involved.
Vine of the Times: A single six-second vine ad can cost brands anywhere between
Instagram Earners:
$20,000 to $50,000
from Viners with huge social followings.
Instagram users with hundreds of thousands of followers can charge anywhere from
$500 to $5,000 for a single post.
Instagram users with over 5 million followers can charge anywhere from
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“ I F YO U ’ R E L U C KY ENOUG H TO DO W E L L , I T ’ S YO U R R ESPONSI BI LITY TO S E N D T H E E L E VA T O R B A C K D O W N ” Kevin Spacey
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Wo rd s : M e l N o a ke s EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING EXPERT AND FOUNDER OF NAKED COACHING
This quote endlessly inspires me. In a world where we idolise celebrities for, well, being famous, and the next generation is bombarded by Kardashian / Jenner updates – what does it really mean to send the elevator back down? What kind of role models are we being? What kind of role models are we allowing to provide the commentary and moral compass both for the young aspiring generation that follows and ourselves? Starting my career I didn’t think much about these topics. I joined an incredible agency at 21 as a receptionist and within less than five years I went from receptionist to Production Assistant to Account Manager to the agency’s global client. I worked hard, took risks and continued to grow. I eventually became the Head of Experiential Marketing for one of the biggest entertainment and electronics companies in the world. So you could say I have been fortunate enough to “do well”. Yet in a recent poll conducted by Ernest and Young of 1,000 UK working women between the ages of 18 and 60 years old, two-thirds of respondents said that they had or expected to face multiple barriers during their career lifecycle. As Liz Bingham from EY so eloquently says “we’ve reached a point where we need to accept that, as a concept for today’s modern career, the notion of a single glass ceiling is dead.” But surprisingly women much lower down the career ladder are facing many more of these challenges than you would have thought. So what are the barriers and what options do we have to overcome them? The four key barriers identified in the survey were lack of role models, age (being perceived as too young or too old) with women under 23 already stating to already having noticed barriers, experience and qualifications and motherhood. What’s interesting is that they can be experienced at any time and often several at once. While these aren’t exclusive to women, the survey showed they are often more marked for us. So what does it take to be a woman in today’s working landscape? Marian Okogwu who created Black Pepper PR has learnt from role models such as Susie Forbes from LCF and Vanessa Kingori at GQ that it’s about embracing your potential, creating opportunities and embracing who you are. As a successful young entrepreneur she readily acknowledges the role that these mentors have played in her life. “Having these inspirational women, who were able to command the room and lead, yet still be entirely feminine and connected showed me that it was possible”. Whilst not all her mentors, or mine for that matter, have been female, there is a strong link between seeing someone you readily identify with having a certain status or behaving a certain way and your belief that it’s possible to do the same. This is something we learn as children as we seek role models and examples from which we can learn and copy and readily identify - 75 -
with. We learn through imitation and we shape our view of the world based on the experiences and role models we learn from. We begin at home with our family and as we, and our social circles grow, so does our ability to choose different role models and mentors for different needs. I was fortunate enough to host a number of inspirational, talented and successful women to discuss these issues and the premise that women have different work place experiences to their male counterparts. Rather than sitting around the (very lovely) coffee table and lampooning men it was quite clear that they all felt a sense of responsibility. The overwhelming sentiment I took away from the hour we spent together setting the world to rights was this: women need to stand together and be the change they want to see in the world. Rather than fighting each other we need to be able to support and champion each other, foster a culture of open discussion and communication and as Michela Beltrami from Jawbone so beautifully said “keep the elevator moving”. As senior women we need to show and support younger women in their understanding in the workplace and access to opportunities. When we see something that is unjust or unfair we need to speak up and use our voices positively and crucially we need to champion other women and support their growth and development alongside our own. Earlier this year Patricia Arquette used her Oscar speech to call for equal pay for women everywhere and Jennifer Lawrence set the blogosphere ablaze when she denounced a system that allowed her male co-stars on “American Hustle” to earn more for their work on the film than she did. It’s testament to how powerful our voices can be when used in certain forums. It’s an interesting coincidence that in the week I host these amazing ladies California finally announced a change of laws when it comes to equal pay, starting from January 2016 companies will have to prove why they are paying females less than their male counterparts for the same role. Perhaps Hollywood’s leading ladies will lead the way and open the doors for us all. So clearly a voice used well can be powerful and if we, as women, stand together there is no doubt that we can create change. And there are changes happening as 25% FTSE 100 company board directors are now women compared to just 12.5% in 2011. Equal pay is being discussed at Government level. Inspirational young women like Hayley Mills and Marian are establishing companies and careers and inspiring their generation to follow suit. Women are creating opportunities to stand together and be heard so inevitably I believe the glass ceiling will be shattered on multiple fronts in my lifetime. As a regular contributor to this publication I hope that I, in some small way, can send the elevator back down on a regular basis and provide a platform to showcase the incredible work and tenacity of the women changing the shape of our industry and world.
P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G
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GIRLS LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE
On Thursday 26th November at Shoreditch House, a small group of inspirational women came together to share their stories, life experiences and challenges as women in the workplace. All with different backgrounds and work lives, the morning’s discussion focused on a range of points such as mentoring, the concept of the ‘glass ceiling’ in the workplace and the progress that has been made by women in the workplace. Chaired by Mel Noakes, the discussion’s panel featured Gina Solanki and Natasha Lytton of SAVSE Smoothies, freelance copywriter Hayley Power, Samanah Duran of fashion brand Critics Clothing, Stephanie McLaren-Neckles of Let’s Be Brief, Hayley Mills of The Joy of a Box, Marian Okogwu of BlackPepper PR and Director of Channel Marketing EMEIA for Jawbone, Michela Beltrami. Over the course of an hour, what came out strongly from the talk was the need for women today to have self-belief and not be afraid to speak their mind and have the confidence to act proud of their strengths and achievements. What was also apparent is that change is good, and though women have come a long way in the world, they’ve got to continue to make change, challenge the status quo, and as Mel aptly put, “Be the change you want to be in the world”.
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“ H AT E T H E E X P E C TAT I O N T H AT A FEMALE ENVIRONMENT SHOULD B E S E L F D E P R E C I AT I N G ” N a t a s h a L y t t o n , S AV S E S M O OT H I E S
“BE THE CHANGE YOU WA N T TO B E I N T H E W O R L D ” M e l N o a ke s EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING EXPERT AND FOUNDER OF NAKED COACHING
“ T H E B E ST WAY TO LEARN IS TO JUST DO IT” M a r i a n o k o g w u , BLACKPEPPER PR
“ C U LT I VAT E A C U LT U R E O F A S K I N G Q U E S T I O N S A N D H AV I N G T H E C O N F I D E N C E T O A S K Q U E S T I O N S , SHARE OPINIONS AND CHALLENGE “
M i c h e l a B e l t r a m i , J AW B O N E
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581,000
N EW C O M PA N I E S W E R E FOUN DED LAST YEAR W H I C H E Q UAT E S T O O N E BEI NG BORN A M I N UTE I N TH E U K.
P H OT O B Y. D A I S Y B O U L D I N G
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When I stumbled across this Guardian report last year, which revealed these figures I was fascinated. After graduating and jumping at various opportunities to do a series of placements and contract work at everywhere that I possibly could; from prestigious fashion houses to Media Agencies, I soon took an interest in shaping the narrative and reputation of these new brands which were popping up everywhere! I also thought it’ll be fun and within my remit to consolidate and help to refresh the identity of veteran brands. This thought was exciting to me, as I knew that it would be fulfilling. Just knowing that there are so many companies out there who needed help and could not necessarily afford the hefty price tags attached to some of the top 150 agencies but still wanted the direction and support- I knew their was a gap in the market. Black Pepper PR was birthed with this in mind- I wanted to bridge the gap between ‘start up UK’ and giving this new wave of businesses the tools that they deserve to thrive and survive in such competitive markets. I started to think, what can I offer that’s slightly different? What do most people tend to complain about PR Agencies? Same old…long retainers, lack of delivery and lack of personal touch with team members and then viola! I thought to myself, why don’t I start off by being a lot more flexible by working on some project-based work for SME. Why don’t I offer that personal touch which many people feel that they are loosing when emails get passed on or the Account Manager leaves? And so that is what I did.
possible to juggle work and family life, to be feminine yet fierce, to be ambitious yet sincere. I know that I still have a long way to go and I actually can’t stand telling people their do’s and don’ts as I believe that it is a different journey for everyone however, I do have a few things. Well 7 of them. 7 Things:
•
Network network network
•
Don’t bite off more than you can chew (unless you have/invest resources to do the ‘chewing’)
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Don’t overpromise. Manage expectations
•
Make an effort with appearance (I’m such a ‘plain Jane’ whatever that means so I still find this a chore!)
•
Do the best that you can-always
•
Invest in people with strengths that you don’t necessarily have where you can. People get you further not a flashy office!
•
Assign your self a mentor/mentors
This is me sending the elevator back down in my own little way (not so far down as I am still on my way up)!
Mentors have been very significant in my journey. They made me realise that it was possible despite my age or race and without them I probably wouldn’t have had the desire to pursue what I wanted to. I will forever feel grateful that so many wonderful women (and men!) who I have learned so much from have inspired me. Its only right to do a traditional ‘shout out’ to shed some light on these powerful ladies; GQ’s Vanessa Kingori, Flora Chigwedere (Covent garden Dental Spa), Caroline Roderiguez, Genius Brand founder, Susie Forbes, Principle, Condé Nast College of Fashion) and of course my own brilliant and supportive mother Rosemary Okogwu. Thank you so much.
Wo rd s : M a r i a n O ko g w u , FOUNDER OF BLACK PEPPER PR
Each of these bright and beautiful women come from various disciplines and are of different shapes and shades. Some whom I have learnt from by regular direct one-to one conversations; others I have simply observed but either way, they have shaped whom I am and how I think to date. They were the reason why I know that it is - 81 -
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TO LEARN MORE CONTACT IAN IRVING ian@breedcommunications.com @MrIanIrving
2 Swan Road London SE18 5TT T. +44(0)208 855 5535 www.breedcommunications.com @breed_creative
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BAN THE BUZZ WORDS - 84 -
CRAFTED C U R AT E D ARTISANAL IMMERSIVE EXPERIENTIAL I N N O VAT I V E DISRUPTIVE AUTHENTIC H E R I TA G E BESPOKE - 85 -
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NEW HORI ZONS.
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P H OT O B Y. B J Ö R N S I M O N - 89 -
CHALLENGE AND DISRUPT, BE PART OF THE NOW, BE A BRAND OF THE FUTURE. W o r d s : I a n I r v i n g ST R AT E G Y DIRECTOR, BREED
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The past few years have seen the rise of a new generation of what we often call challenger brands in all the markets, Sport saw the arrival of Under Armour, Alcohol has seen the likes of BrewDog and The Kraken, Energy wowed us with Ovo and these are all brands that are taking the disruptive attitude to the next level to often huge success. This is all very exciting to see the manifestation of true David v Goliath battles for market share and fandom but what does it really mean to be a challenger brand today and what behaviours will we see in the year ahead and why is the idea of the challenger relevant for all businesses? It was quite some time ago that we saw the first generation of so-called challenger brands such as the easyJet’s, Paddy Power’s and Virgin Atlantic’s etc. Within traditional sectors they brought a new dynamic to the existing, and supposedly fixed, staid, formulaic business models and those old models and attitudes were no longer defendable against new ideas, new models and services and the ‘maverick’ attitudes of these new ‘upstarts’. I am fortunate enough to have worked with many of the challenger brands, perhaps purely it was a case of right time right place but it’s been a great education to see how these brands took on the “establishment”. Paddy Power brought entertainment and pricing odds beyond horse racing to the staid, flat cap world of bookmaking. easyJet shone a bright orange beacon across the expensive world of air travel re-engineering the economics of airlines and reimagining what it involved. Frills and services gave way to value priced commodity travel. And before Stelios, we saw Richard Branson slay the BA monster as the superhero Robin Hood of long haul. With easyJet turning twenty and ‘growing up’ in its own words, where does this leave the concept of challenger brands and is the underlying formulae of challenging the status quo a strategy to follow going into the New Year? Now, I’m no guru nor am I a betting man but my money is definitely on the mavericks and the challengers this year (2016). Those upstarts with their attitude, the edge and the lack of fear using their ‘shock and awe’ and their ‘surprise and delight’ to attract and embrace the modern day consumer. Under Armour is the fearless underdog and innovator and disruptor relentlessly winning consumers from the giant swoosh Nike and striking a zeitgeist with campaigns like ‘I will what I am.’ Ovo Energy has introduced personality, simplicity and dare I say it a little humanity to the pin stripe cartel of the ‘big six’ energy suppliers. Being disruptive isn’t easy, markets now move at the speed of technology. We live in exponential times and the pace of change is accelerating. Adaptation requires radical transformation in marketing. It requires innovations to both your products and your business model. Success through innovation means continuous disruption. Disruptive brands tend to grow in leaps and bounds, changing the trajectory of consumers’ viewpoint of the brand and the marketplace. They are vibrant, daring and authentic, and often are challenger brands, operating unseen below the radar until it is too late for the competition to react to their ascendency. They often shape the culture itself in innovative ways. Apple is the best example that comes to mind. It broke all the existing norms and conventions and created consumer advocates that evangelised for the brand.
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Disruptive brands understand consumer trends before they become trends and capitalise on them better than their competitors. Many of these brands understand the shift to a sharing economy and have designed their business model accordingly. For example, understanding that people avoid interruptive messaging, for the overwhelming majority of these brands traditional advertising is not a major component of their business model. Disruptive brands are different from ordinary brands because they get people engaged and immersed in the brand’s equity. They often mention these brands to others and hold them in high regard, even coveting them . “Disruption is all about risk-taking, trusting your intuition, and rejecting the way things are supposed to be. Disruption goes way beyond advertising, it forces you to think about where you want your brand to go and how to get there.” RICHARD BRANSON
When you do the deep dive into all of this and get to the nuts and bolts you realise what’s at the epicenter of every challenger brand’s DNA – ATTITUDE. It’s their attitude that says “no, I will not conform, yes I will watch what you are doing, and I will do the opposite, I am going to rewrite the rules of the game, not tell you about it and make you look old, out of date and irrelevant”.
FOR THEY ARE THE MAVERICKS. “I’ve seen that phenomenally successful people believe they can learn something from everybody. I call them ‘mavericks with mentors.’ Richard Branson, for instance, is a total maverick but he surrounds himself with incredibly successful, smart people and he listens to them”. BRENDON BURCHARD
Now, let me tell you this much I do know, being a Maverick is not easy, mavericks are feared and mavericks are often kept at arms length by those with traditional or corporate mentality or those with, frankly a weak disposition. I’d like to share from my own experience and research on the subject, a few strategic gems in the challenger mindset that marketers, strategists and communicators should look closely at: Own a new truth and new language Shine a light on a consumer need, attitude or want that no one has noticed or even talked about and talk about it in words that are new and fresh to the category. Be a thought leader not a market leader Share your point of view, personality and expertise with the world. Question relentlessly why industries do what they do and bring it back to the consumer. Take on the villain Incumbents or monopolies represent gigantic bad guys and you’re Luke Skywalker. Use them to project your point of difference and inject emotion or doubt into the category purchasing dynamic.
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DISRUPTION IS THE NEW NORMAL Be cultural, embrace fandom Challengers don’t play safe. They take risks to be relevant and noticed. This is the lifeblood of any brand. As well as the strategy, you need to build industrial strength behind the brand, customer service and communications system to make it all work. Use super-fans of your product to lead the conversation and don’t sell on product features, campaign on issues. Traditional mid-market brands do not question what they do and how they do it enough. They control when they should empower and decline slowly as a result. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There is a little challenger brand in all of us. Bring it out and bring it on. Be The Irreverent Maverick This stance could be described as ‘counterculture attitude in a box’; think Red Bull, Paddy Power, Nando’s, Hell Pizza or BrewDog. The Irreverent Maverick uses wit, humour and sometimes shock tactics to puncture the status quo and attract a very particular audience to their brand.
To the challengers and the mavericks, we salute you. Wo rd s : I a n I r v i n g ST R AT E G Y D I R E C TO R , B R E E D
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CRITICS AD
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THE FUTURE IS HERE
RETAIL TRENDS BEING DRIVEN BY CONSUMERS IN 2016 E-commerce has been steadily growing for several years, and it’s said that in the USA alone its expected to hit $327 billion by 2016, up from $202 billion in 2011. Interesting to note is that more bricks-and-mortar-focused retailers are stepping up their online game and increasing the percentage of their sales that come from online channels, and Web-only retailers have been growing at an impressive rate, too. Retailers have spent these years honing the shopping experience on their websites. But just when they thought they knew their consumers, things are changing again. The rise of social is shaking up things in surprising ways. The emergence of mobile as a major shopping channel is putting new power into consumers’ hands. Customers expect to use all channels as though they are a single experience, requiring tight integration across those channels. And big data now makes it possible to gain deeper insight into consumers than has ever before been possible. What does this mean for retailers? Everything. It means the competition, which has already been fierce, won’t get any easier. It means there’s a huge opportunity to capture new market share—and a substantial risk of losing market share to retailers who can execute effective strategies that address social, mobile, and big data. To succeed, retailers need to leverage five trends that are currently transforming the retail landscape. Retailers that embrace these trends and incorporate them into their strategy can realise higher conversions and larger transaction sizes
“44% of total retail sales will be impacted by the Web in 2016”. SHOPPING IS BECOMING MORE SOCIAL
Millennials, those born roughly between 1978 and 1995 are already profoundly shaping the consumer experience. In fact, by 2017, it’s estimated that this group will have more spending power than any other generation. And the way they will wield that power is already driving the way retailers think about consumers and create shopping experiences. Millennials are highly motivated by social information, and they carry their social networks everywhere they go. They trust brands less than they trust their peers, and they are more suspicious of overt marketing than generations that came before them. Personalised shopping experiences such as, word-of-mouth content that can be filtered from people with similar attributes—is more likely to motivate them than unfiltered user-generated content. In fact, 51% of Millennials say consumer opinions found on a company’s website have a greater impact on their purchase decisions than recommendations from family and friends. Millennials also want to award their dollars to brands that reflect their values and personalities. Sixty-three percent of Millennials say that knowing a company is “mindful of its social responsibilities” makes them more likely to buy from that brand, and 58% are even willing to pay higher prices when part of their spend goes to help causes they support.
MOBILE IS THE MEDIUM!
In fact, 70% of consumers research online before purchasing in-store, and the average shopper uses approximately 10.4 sources of information to make a purchase decision. Retailers can’t sit back and hope for positive wordof-mouth content. They have to play an active role in its creation and they have to put word-of-mouth content right in the path of consumers who are considering purchases. By integrating customer purchase and experience stories, ratings and reviews, and questions and answers into the online and in-store shopping experience and even into marketing campaigns—retailers can increase awareness of their brands; engage consumers; and create loyal, lasting relationships. When footwear brand Skechers added Q&A functionality to product pages, it saw a 32% increase in conversion for those products. Notifying customers that their questions have been answered garnered even bigger results: an 80% open rate on notification emails and a 51% conversion rate from those same emails.
A key differentiator for retailers will be the ability to provide not just any social content, but relevant social content. Consumers want emails, alerts, product suggestions, and user-generated content that they can filter
IT’S THAT ‘M’ WORD AGAIN… MILLENIALS ARE STILL SETTING THE TONE.
Retailers need to be aware of the unique preferences of the Millennial generation and create shopping experiences that satisfy their need for trustworthy information, personalisation, and socially conscious products and practices. This generation is already a powerful force in the market, and it will only grow in spending power.
Customers are talking about products and services in highly visible places all over the Web, and these conversations are playing a role in consumers’ purchasing decisions. Shoppers aren’t just stumbling into user-generated content about products and services; they’re actively seeking it out and making it an indispensable part of their purchase process.
By embracing and facilitating social where customers are discovering, considering, and buying, retailers can also expect to increase wallet share. Benefit, a cosmetics brand with an e-commerce site, physical stores, and retail presence, saw a 1,000% higher click-through rate for the “Buy Now” button on Facebook than its average online advertisement.
and sort according to the attributes they care about. They want some of this personalisation to happen automatically, too, such as customised suggestions based on recent searches or buying history. Retailers that can provide this kind of personalisation will ensure that shoppers encounter the most persuasive data possible at the right point in the buying cycle.
Mobile is no longer an up-and-coming medium for shoppers; it’s here and now. Smartphones are everywhere, it was said that by the end of 2013 alone, more than half of all people in the United States would have one. Mobile traffic is also growing dramatically, in 2016, mobile traffic will account for a whopping 40% of all traffic. It’s no surprise, then, that commerce on smartphones is expected to skyrocket from £3 billion in 2010 to £31 billion in 2016. (And that number doesn’t include tablet commerce, which will likely grow as those devices become more ubiquitous.) A recent consumer survey found that nearly 53% of smartphone owners and 64% of tablet owners planned to use their devices to research products, look up store information, and/or make purchases during the Christmas shopping season. And when they use those devices to find information, they’re more likely to convert. When consumers become smartphone and tablet users, they also become an always-on opportunity for retailers to tap. Shopping can happen anywhere not just in the store or in front of the computer and retailers must evolve their strategies to keep pace with these changes in consumer shopping habits.
“97% of consumers who have browsed in store said they later bought the product online for less”.
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OMNI-CHANNEL CAN AND DOES EQUAL A SEAMLESS EXPERIENCE.
BIG DATA CAN UNCOVER UNPRECEDENTED INSIGHT
For a while now, the buzz around retail has focused heavily on online channels. The talk has centered on how large online retailers, with their low overhead and higher profit margins had the potential to obliterate their bricks-and-mortar competitors. “Show rooming” (browsing in store) is sometimes cited as evidence of this problem. A recent survey found that 43% of smartphone and tablet owners have entered a store to try a product, and 97% of those said they later bought the product online for less.
The rise of e-commerce, mobile and social are all adding up to the biggest development the retail world has seen in BIG DATA. For the first time ever, technology exists that can collect and analyse the massive amounts of data that consumers are generating with every click and tap and even physical movements in stores. Retailers that can successfully capitalise on that data now have the ability to target and personalise their marketing campaigns based on granular data about customer preferences, behaviors, lifestyles, and real-time locations.
And that trend may continue: Another survey found that one-third of the people who said they had not “show roomed” with their mobile devices hadn’t done it yet simply because the idea hadn’t yet occurred to them (that is changing fast and retailers need to be onto it) But the reality is turning out to be less black and white. Recognising this, many retailers have pushed hard to check off all the multichannel boxes: robust physical presence, e-commerce site, social channels, and mobile apps. All of these elements are important, but their mere existence doesn’t ensure success. It’s now clear that the big winners will be the retailers that can blend the online and offline— the digital and the physical “THE PHYGITAL” into one seamless, Omni-channel shopping experience. An Omni-channel strategy entails the tight integration of all channels to create a unified experience and understanding that online shopping happens in stores as much as it happens in homes. It means adding items to a shopping cart online and seeing them when you resume shopping via your iPhone or smart phone of choice. It means consistent pricing and promotions across all channels. It means receiving offers automatically on your phone when you walk into a store and then scanning a product’s QR code or NFC tag to read all of the ratings and reviews on the retail site, then performing a one-click purchase right in the aisle and having the product shipped to your home the next day. Consumers want these smooth interactions across all channels, and providing them will be one of the bigger challenges that retailers face in the ‘very’ near future. But for retailers who do it well, a successful Omni-channel strategy means less “show rooming” and greater market share across all channels. In fact, shoppers who interact with more than one channel spend 18% to 36% more than those who interact with a single channel. Indeed, many businesses are dabbling in Omni-channel to bridge the gap between mobile shopping and in-store shopping. Many retailers are also blending the digital and physical “PHYGITAL” by creating a positive in-store shopping experience that anticipates and even facilitates the use of mobile devices to help consumers make more informed purchase decisions.
A 2011 report by the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that retailers using big data to its full potential could increase their operating margins by more than 60%. Full potential isn’t easy to achieve, though; the same report predicts a shortage of talent that will be able to deeply analyse data and make effective decisions with it. Retailers that can capture that talent will have a clearer understanding of the path that shoppers take to purchase; what most influences them; and which customised deals work best and at what times, and which didn’t all down to each and every individual shopper. Big data isn’t just a potential boost for retailers; it also puts power in consumers’ hands. Retailers that can harness big data can offer relevant, targeted promotions to individual consumers and recommend the right products more often. Retailers will also be able to achieve other goals that will change the consumer experience, boost conversions, and even improve margins such as predicting the next best-selling product, preventing out-ofstock scenarios, and ensuring proper staffing at stores. UK-based retailer Argos discovered that 1.6 million pieces of customer content held a wealth of insight that it could feed back into business decisions to improve both the customer experience and the bottom line. Instead of using the number of product returns as an indication of dissatisfaction with a product, Argos now uses online customer reviews to uncover dissatisfaction with products that customers might not have bothered to return. The supply team also mines online customer feedback for data that can help improve its catalogues every six months and help direct inventory decisions based on customer sentiment. “Shoppers who interact with more than one channel spend 18% to 36% more than those who interact with a single channel”. TAKE OUT. BE THE RETAILER YOUR CONSUMER WANTS YOU TO BE.
Their aim is to create a sense of loyalty that will encourage consumers to purchase through the brand even if the item could be had for a lower price elsewhere. Clever mobile marketing can drive shoppers to physical stores, but the use of technology in-store can also dramatically increase the chance that they’ll purchase on the spot. Retailers will need to provide nearly the same amount of information that consumers can find online: price comparisons, ratings and reviews, item locators, and more. According to Forrester Research, many consumers may purchase products in stores because of the immediate availability of products and high service levels. In response, more online retailers are experimenting with same-day shipping or delivery within hours in certain geographic regions. Others are producing private-label brands that they can sell directly to consumers and that are available only through the channels they choose, eliminating the need to compete head-to-head with other retailers.
“The challenge for retailers is to provide smooth transactions across all channels”.
Consumers are already tuned into the kind of shopping experiences they want. They’re finding the information they need to make purchase decisions, even if that means they aren’t getting it from the retailers themselves. They shop on their own terms via the devices they choose at the times they want from the locations that are most appealing. That doesn’t make retailers less relevant; it has the power to make them more relevant if they can provide those experiences seamlessly and give customers the information they want. To become a trusted partner in consumers’ buying journeys requires tremendous change. But after the doomsayers of the early e-commerce movement, retailers should be heartened: Competing in this new environment of always-connected, highly informed consumers won’t be easy, but it can be rewarding. Retailers that can embrace the trends sweeping the industry will find loyal, engaged consumers waiting for them consumers who will follow through on purchases, spend more, and even spread your message for you.
Wo rd s : I a n I r v i n g EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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